Residential Parking Permit Hearing + Proposed Pilot

On November 2nd, I testified before the City Council Committee on State and Federal Legislation regarding Residential Permit Parking. The Committee voted to support a "home rule" message requesting that the state give the City the authority to create residential parking where needed. Legislation to that effect is sponsored by State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assembly Member Joan Millman. This bill, if passed, would allow the City to implement parking permits in neighborhoods that need this help.
I was quoted on Streetsblog and in The Fort Greene Patch, saying: "We want to make sure we are not completely
overrun, that our children are not killed crossing the street, and that
we can breathe."

Residential Parking Permits (RPPs) are intended to ease parking for residents by reducing parking density and congestion, thereby encouraging the use of mass transit by commuters. This is critical in high-traffic areas, such as the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown Brooklyn, near the AtlanticYards/Barclays Center and Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Although there is no specific design for a City RPP plan yet, the neighborhoods jointly proposed a pilot several years ago. With advances in technology, we are hopeful that when instituted, RPP will address specific community parking needs in targeted ways.

3.
Permits could be issued by whatever agency the administration chooses,
provided it has locations that are readily accessible to neighborhood
residents. Information systems should track registrations and visitor
permits for accessing appropriate fees and for fraud prevention. Fines
for parking beyond the two-hour limit should be equivalent to current
fines. Fine for fraudulent use of the system or use of fraudulent
permits should start at $1,000 and administration of fine collection
should follow that used for parking tickets.

4. Visitors would be
able to park for a maximum of two hours during the period when
residential permit parking regulations are in effect (7 AM - 7PM). There
are also metered spaces available for short-term parking along
commercial streets and some other streets in these neighborhoods. Better
enforcement of metered parking would discourage on-street warehousing
by car and limousine services. The enforcement of the "No Authorized
Permit Parking Zone" would prevent government employees from using
meters for all-day parking.

5. Temporary permits for residents'
use (e.g. for shared services such as Zipcar) and for overnight visitors
could be issued to residents by the same office described in Paragraph
#2. Temporary permits would be valid for a three-day period and would
display the dates and license plate numbers to prevent fraudulent use.

6.
RPP would be pointless without dedicated enforcement. Parking
enforcement is, all too often, selective and targeted at the
"low-hanging fruit." We propose that discussions be held with the
Traffic Enforcement arm of the New York City Police Department about the
enforcement of residential permit parking.

7. Permits, both
residential and those issued by government agencies, should be
recognized by the Department of Transportation. Ticketing and towing
should be equally enforced against all violators, including privately
owned vehicles of government and agency employees. The use of fraudulent
agency permits should be subject to severe fines, and if a procedure
for fining those individuals does not exist, one should be established.
Both fraud enforcement and violation of the RPP regulations would bring
significant revenue to support RPP.

8. We propose that RPP be
tested in the form of a pilot program to evaluate its effectiveness.. A
recent example was the Downtown Brooklyn Traffic Calming study, in which
pilot projects were established and eventually rejected or accepted as
being of benefit or not.